Police launch Facebook service

COPS in Greater Manchester are the first in the country to sign up to a social networking website in a bid to crack crime. GMP has started using the popular Facebook site to appeal for information and raise awareness about unsolved incidents.

COPS in Greater Manchester are the first in the country to sign up to a social networking website in a bid to crack crime.

GMP has started using the popular Facebook site to appeal for information and raise awareness about unsolved incidents.

The force's web unit has set up a special application within Facebook that allows users to submit intelligence about crimes as well as keeping them up to date with news stories.

Once Facebook users have installed the application on their profile page they will be sent a web feed about local news, appeals for missing people and updates on specific incidents where officers need help in tracing witnesses or other information.

The user can then share each story or appeal with their 'friends' as well as posting comments.

Officers from the GMP web unit have also set up a Facebook homepage that features videos and other crime information links.

The Facebook site will also carry the same information as the GMP website such as court cases and pro-active policing operations.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Taylor said: "Greater Manchester Police is proud to be the first force in the country to use this new technology and it demonstrates our commitment to exploring all avenues available to us to help fight and detect crime.

Personal basis

"Facebook has 59 million users, 7 million of which live in the UK, so we realised that this was an excellent way of spreading our messages to people on a more personal basis.

"This application allows Greater Manchester Police to further raise awareness of incidents taking place within our local communities, in a bid to gain more intelligence and bring offenders to justice."

Rob Birkett, from the GMP web unit, said he was confident they would have their first crime solved with the help of Facebook in the near future and so far they have had a positive uptake with more than 100 people signing up to the application.

He added: "We came up with this to target the younger generation and we already more than 100 people signed up.

"It is already generating intelligence and it will not be long before it has helped solve a crime."

The application can be shared amongst a user's friends or can be added directly from http://apps.facebook.com/gmpupdates .

It can also be found by typing Greater Manchester Police into the Facebook search facility.